Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Trivia (5 Biomes points): What was this thing used for? I found it out in a salt marsh last year when Mary and I visited the Cape Cod National Seashore. It's about four feet long, weighs a lot since I couldn't budge it, and dates back to the early 1700's.

Monday, April 28, 2008

April's had her name changed to "Creole", and she's settling in well. She's now partially crate trained and I've already taught her the "sit" command. Creole's six months old.

Although she won't let me out of her sight, she's taken a shine to The Boy as well.

I was in need of some sleep since I got up at 4:30 am to make the house puppy-proof. I picked her up as soon as the shelter opened at eight. Although she's half Catahoula leopard dog, she's also half Coonhound, and the coonhound features seem to be dominant.

She's going to fit in quite well at Chez Biomes.

Oh, and you can turn your images into old-style photos using this application. It's in Japanese (or Korean, or something Asian) but it's pretty easy to use. It turns that third photo into this:

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A short history of the people of the Bikini Atoll. Over fifty years after nuclear tests on the islands destroyed nearly all life forms, corals are finally starting to make a comeback, although at least forty species are still locally extinct.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

David Neiwert notes that nearly forty years after they were wiped out by whalers, humpbacks are returning to Vancouver Island. Here’s a thirty minute recording of the first whale song heard there in decades.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

My new project at the animal shelter is April, who just came in this past weekend along with her three brothers. She’s half coonhound and half Louisiana catahoula leopard dog, which is a breed I’ve never even heard of before, but all four puppies are adorable.

Let’s put this internet/email issue to rest here. The Costa Rican starving dog artist thing is a hoax. The dog was not starved or harmed in any way. The artist created the exhibit to show the public’s hypocrisy regarding the plight of animal abuse and neglect. Apparently it was a pretty successful stunt.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Although I didn’t watch last week’s Clinton-Obama debate on ABC, I’ve
read over and over on teh blogs how horrible it was. Watch the whole
thing here
and see for yourself. The people at YouDecide did a nice job of putting
this 10-part youtube series together so that one segment automatically
leads into the next one. Still, teh blogs are right: The questions were
just awful.

“If you think the Democrats are going to take away your
Bible you're an idiot, if you think they're going to take away your gun
you're an armed idiot, and if you think they're going to take away your
gun and give it to a mexican to kill your God you're Bill O'Reilly.” -- Bill Maher

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Scarlet, the coonhound I’ve been working with at the shelter, has been adopted before I could get a photo up. Four new coonhound puppies are scheduled to arrive this weekend so I’ll start on one of them Monday. Meanwhile, Tbogg gets a third bassett.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

You can listen to the new online Freethought Radio, streaming live all day and night. So far I’ve only listened to part of one show, a weekly series called “The Thomas Jefferson Hour”, which was much more interesting than it would seem to be. You can also download the shows onto your iPod at his website.